The BBC has given details of BBC Three’s online schedule as the station becomes the first major broadcaster to do away with linear transmissions.
Highlights include a collaboration with Idris Elba’s Green Door Pictures, new British drama Clique, new documentary Black Power, new formats Life And Death Row: Love Triangle and Unsolved: The Boy Who Disappeared.
The channel is being reinvented as a home for original British comedy and drama, combined with current affairs for the 16 to 34 target audience.
Damian Kavanagh, Controller BBC Three: “BBC Three is a badge of quality and shorthand for content that will stimulate emotions and provoke reactions. It’s the same award-winning programmes freed from the constraints of linear TV, and because we’re freed from the schedule we can use whatever format and platform is most appropriate. The majority of what we will make is TV, like People Just Do Nothing, but we’ll make short form video, blogs and picture-led stories as well. We’ll be on YouTube, Snapchat, Facebook and our new site The Daily Drop.”
While Kavanagh and his colleagues are placing a gloss on the channel’s circumstances, forced on the BBC by a reduction in income and a government intent on clipping its wings, creatives are embracing the new format.
Marnie Dickens, writer, Thirteen said: “Working on BBC Three meant one thing. Freedom. To tell the story the way we wanted to tell it. Launching as an online drama allowed us to create a parallel interactive story that takes the audience deeper into the world of Thirteen.”
Dickens’ companion drama Find The Girl interweaves a character that exists wholly online while Elba’s production company will deliver a series of short films from new writers featuring new on-screen talent working alongside established on-screen talent.
